The section arrives at La Filmoteca Memory and utopia of the Seminci, what, since last year, the Vallisoletà festival is dedicated to reclaiming titles hidden by history. In some cases, due to political censorship; in others, for economic reasons, gender discrimination, or because of his own unhinged nature, outside the canon prevailing in his time. Within the cycle, restored or recently digitized copies of eight feature films made in Mexico will be shown for the first time in Valencia, the united states, Portugal, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Iran between 1949 i 2002.
Among the films that could be part of an alternative cinema history that did not fit into the mainstream, marked by a political situation or by the standardizing film industry, you can see two proposals, separated temporally and geographically but united by a reflection on femininity that did not fit in its time, at the end of the years 40, to present attitudes identified with men, how to carry sexual initiative: The black Angustias, by Matilde Landeta, pioneer director in Mexican cinematography, i The faceless woman, de Gustaf Molander, with script by Ingmar Bergman.
Nor did they find coupling in the orthodoxy of independent cinema 90 the proposals of American African-American filmmakers Naked Acts, Bridget M. Davis, i The Annihilation of Fish, by Charles Burnett. The first was mistreated for mixing racial and gender factors; and the second was forgotten by the distributors after a devastating review in the magazine Variety. Just as they were misunderstood in form and subject, Low altitude flying device, de Solveig Nordlund, he didn't follow the unwritten rules of the genre, fantastic in this case, in adapting the author J.G.. Ballard.
Other titles selected in "Memory and utopia" demonstrate a dissonance within the national cinematographies from which they come. It is the case ofA wasted Sunday, debut of filmmaker Drahomira Vihanová, banned at the time in Czechoslovakia to reflect the country's situation after the Prague Spring, and of The Sealed Soil, debut feature by Iranian Marva Nabili, the first surviving full-length feature film directed by an Iranian woman.
Definitely, films that all disappeared from memory, but which are now reappearing thanks to the restorations carried out by colleagues from other film libraries and film archives: the Swedish Film Institute (The faceless woman), the National Cinematheque of Mexico (The black Angustias), the Czech National Film Archive (A wasted Sunday), the UCLA Film and Television Archive (The Sealed Soil, The Annihilation of Fish) and the Portuguese Cinematheque (Low altitude flying device). A good occasion to remember, one more time, the essential work of film libraries in the conservation and dissemination of film history. Also when rewriting it.
07.01.25 TUESDAY / 20.00 h
15.01.25 WEDNESDAY / 18.00 h
Low altitude flying device
Aparelho voador a baixa altitude
SOLVEIG NORDLUND. Portugal, sweden. 2002. VOS CASTELLÀ*. Color. 80′. DCP.
Int. Margarida Marinho, Miguel Guilherme, Rui Morrisson, Rita Só, Isabel de Castro, Canto e Castro, Ismael Lourenço.
La directora sueca Solveig Nordlund ens situa en un futur distòpic on la raça humana es troba en vies d’extinció. Les dones ja no es volen quedar embarassades per temor a gestar mutants, que són eliminats a l’instant per les autoritats. Embarassada per sexta vegada, Judite decidix escapar en companyia del seu home, buscant refugi en un ruïnós hotel prop de la mar. La vida, death, el totalitarisme i la busca d’esperança són els temes centrals d’una obra única en el context del cine portugués, basada en un conte de James G. Ballard.
